Sep 14, 2011

Locked Out

I was never good with keys, or mainly remembering keys. Of course, this changed once I began driving, but before that, I never really had a key for anything. My house has a push pad entry on the garage.

I never had a key.

This changed when I moved to Australia and lived with host families. The second family, to be more precise. The McFucks.

The war between myself and this family, or rather, their war against me, was well under way, but had not yet reached the vortex. It was brewing. Just under the surface. I was coming home from somewherethefuck. I cannot remember, nor is it particularly relevant, but it was around 9 o'clock at night. Not late.

It was pouring rain, as in, it was a Melbournian down pour of excessive force and volume, and I had forgotten my key. Where were the family McFuck, you ask? They were all sitting in the family room watching television together. The Mrs, the Mister, and THREE of their four adult children that still lived at home. Yes, THAT family.

I didn't feel it was nessessary to ring the doorbell, as their family room was right off the front door. They could see me, just as I could see them. Instead, I just lightly rattled my knuckles against the metal screen door. "Hello! Sorry, I forgot my key."

There was a paused silence and no one seemed to turn their head towards me. Then I heard Mr. McFuck yell from his recliner, "Well then, yew'd best rememba' it next time, now won'tcha? You, missy, need to learn ya lesson!"

What. The. Fuck?

They weren't getting up to let me in? No. No one.

It was raining. Hard. I was wearing a "water resistant" hooded jacket that was proving to be useless under these extreme circumstances. I was soaking. I didn't know what to say or what to do. I should have left; gone to a friend's house, but I was stunned. Frozen.

I turned around like a rusted tin man and sat on the wet cement porch. I could see the water flowing over the steps like a waterfall, but I didn't care. I could feel the cold water seep through my jeans and my underwear. I sat there and cried. It was an angry cry. Tears of hatred burned down my face and then crashed against the running rain water below like hot and cold cymbals.

I was there for over an hour before they let me in.

I don't know if I "learned my lesson" about remembering my keys, but I never again left the house without my fucking umbrella.

21 comments:

This is a true story??? Oh, my heart is hurting! That is terrible & so unfair! It's so cruel. I hope my discipline never feels this way to my children. What they did to you was really heartless & I am sorry it happened to you. You didn't deserve that.

Ok so not sure how it works but if they were your host family, didn't they Volunteer to shelter and take care of you in some way??? And then to pull that nonsense? Craziness! That's heartless, straight up!

I should defend the notion of exchange here - because although this family was horrible, there are many more wonderful families. Usually, there are 4 families in 1 year of an exchange program (through Rotary, anyway) and most will say that out of the 4, they are bound not to LOVE all of them, but that makes part of the overall experience of learning about different cultures and families.

I totally understand the McFucks and their adult children living at home. You see, their children are scared, both physically and emotionally. If you look at them you will find the kids have multiple buried psychoses. You will probably also find scarred hands and heads. This is bound to happen when your parents stick your finger in a light socket or force your head on to a hot burner in order to teach you about pain and the damage you could do to yourself.

Sitting in the rain was one of the McFucks more subtle instructional methods.